Anglo-French prize convention

On 9 November 1914 in London the British Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey, and the French ambassador, Paul Cambon, signed a convention on prizes taken in time of war. The agreement settled which of the allies was to judge ships and cargoes seized by British and French warships, especially when they were operating together.

Who judges the capture

Under maritime law a ship stopped at sea by a warship did not automatically become the property of the captor. Whether the seizure was lawful and whether the ship and cargo were liable to confiscation was decided by the prize court of the state that had made the seizure. When the fleets of two allies were operating in the same waters, as in the Mediterranean or off the coast of Africa, where a joint expedition had taken Duala together with the German ships lying in the port, it had to be settled whose court had jurisdiction.

The convention adopted a few simple principles. Enemy and neutral prizes were to be judged by the courts of the state to which the capturing warship belonged, regardless of whose command it was operating under. If a capture was made jointly by the forces of both states, the courts of the country under whose flag the officer commanding the operation sailed had jurisdiction. When a warship of one ally seized a ship in the presence and within sight of a warship of the other, the country of the actual captor was to judge. On the other hand, a detained merchant ship of one of the allies, for example for carrying contraband, was to go before a court of its own state.

Sharing the proceeds

The convention also regulated the division of the proceeds from the sale of jointly captured prizes. After deduction of costs they were divided into as many shares as there were men aboard the warships taking part in the capture, regardless of rank. Each government then distributed the sum due to it according to its own regulations. Instructions for warship commanders were attached to the agreement, specifying how to draw up reports of seizure and where to take detained ships.

Ratifications were exchanged on 21 December 1914. The convention provided for accession by other allied states. Italy acceded to it in January 1917. It was one of many agreements by which the Allies coordinated the conduct of economic warfare at sea and the ever tighter blockade of Germany.